


Stain My Name

by krossartist



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: "raises hand", Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Feisty!Rey, I have the pdf downloaded, Soft Ben Solo, but with POV Ben Solo can we really be surprised?, follows the plot of TFA until it doesn't, jk I don’t google the script anymore, raise your hand if you've Googled the movie's script to help you write fic!, this came out much more poetic than I originally intended, visual representations of the Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:35:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23863126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/krossartist/pseuds/krossartist
Summary: When a baby is born, the person who gives them their name writes it on their arm in neat lines of ink. Through a bond in the Force, the ink appears on another. Soulmates, they call them. Bound together forever through drops of ink on their shared skin.Sometimes they get their match's name back right away. Sometimes, they're the first born of their pair, and they have to wait.Ben Solo waits for a very long time.Kylo Ren makes his soulmate wait even longer.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 126
Kudos: 492





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This work was started seven. months. ago. And it's FINALLY DONE and I'm SO EXCITED to share it with you all!!!
> 
> Thank you, Thank you, THANK YOU to [SuchAPrettyPoison](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuchaPrettyPoison/pseuds/SuchaPrettyPoison) for all your encouragement, beta reading, and making beautiful moodboards <3
> 
> It's in the universe!!  
> 

#

It was there on his arm when he woke up and he thought he might cry. Or vomit. Or scream with joy, or terror. He thought he might do all of those things, but he did none of them for what felt like hours. He just sat there on his bed, arm resting on his blanket covered knees, vaguely aware of the way the other arm propping him up started to ache. Sunbeams crept in through the window until the name on his arm was bathed in light.

_Ireina_

Maker, but it was beautiful.

It hadn’t been surprising for his parents to not receive a response on the day he was born- his mother had written his name on his arm, the name of the man who had given her hope. They knew there was a likelihood they'd have to wait. His name was washed away a week after his birth, and it was the last drops of ink they put on his skin until someone else's name took its place.

It had taken ten years.

Ten years, he’d waited. Well, more like his parents waited for the first four or five years and he'd been waiting for the last six, once he understood the significance of just what exactly he had to wait for. Ten years of blank skin, ten years of watching his peers bloom in ink and giggles, ten years of a growing, aching loneliness that no amount of attention could quench- be it from his parents, the voice in his head, or any other source.

And if he was truly honest, the past two years he’d started to believe he would always be alone.

_"Ireina,"_ he whispered to himself, wanting to hear it out loud.

Now she was waiting for him to respond. The thought had him whipping back his bedsheets and sprinting into the kitchen. It was a rare occasion that both his parents were home. His mother sat at the table with a holopad while his father got them caf, an unexceptional start to an uneventful day that had become the most important of his life. They looked up at him with wide eyes when he burst into the room.

"Mom! Mom I… I need a pen."

His parents stared at him for a long moment, putting the pieces together - their son freaking out, needing a pen, what reason could there be for such desperation? Their eyes flickered to his arm where the letters laid stark blue against his skin.

His mother burst into tears with a gasp while his father’s caffa cup overflowed. The liquid burned his hand, and he jumped back with a hiss as he snapped out of his bewilderment.

"Aw geeze, Leia, this is nothing to cry over," his dad huffed at her weeping. Dismissive, as always, especially about this subject. He sat down the caffa pot and wiped his hands off on a towel before digging in the drawers for a pen.

"It's _everything_ to cry over, Han! Our son got his pair's name! Oh, sweetheart, can I see it?"

He walked over and let her take his arm in her hands, run her fingertips over the letters.

"Ireina," she sighed. "It means ‘peace.’ What a beautiful name."

He smiled, his heart beating wildly. "It is."

His father was a blank, though the boy had entertained the thought of shaving Uncle Chewie's arm to test a theory on more than one occasion. His mother had been erased. Her heart was his father's, but her soul belonged to a boy whose name she refused to speak, blown away with Alderaan. They've been open with him about their reality, what it's like to not share each other's skin, but it was never a reality he wanted to have in common with them. Now, he finally had the proof that he didn't.

His dad came to join them, holding a pen in his hand.

"Do you want me to write it, kid?" he asked, voice low.

"No. No, I can do it. I want to do it."

He took the pen and steadied his forearm against the table, willing his other hand to not shake as he wrote just below her name.

_Ben_

\---

He didn't want Ireina to grow up the way he did. He _couldn't_ allow that to happen. Ben needed her to know he was out there, that he was thinking about her, that she would never have to know the aching loneliness of empty skin.

She was a baby, though, so he didn't bother trying to write with her until she was old enough to learn to read. He drew her little pictures instead. Animals, shapes, flowers.

_She likes your drawings,_ someone wrote after about four months. The handwriting was loopy, the same as the one who wrote her name to him, so he assumed it was her mother. _They make her laugh._

He made sure to draw to her every day after that.

She was about a year and a half old when he happened to lift his trouser leg to scratch an itch and saw his knees covered in scribbles. He sat down on the spot and stayed there for half an hour, watching her create lines of beautiful nonsense. It was the first mark she ever made herself and he cherished it.

_She learned to say your name today,_ her mother told him, the words sitting atop a line of cartoonish loth kittens along his arm. He didn't stop grinning for days. He couldn't wait to hear her voice. The thought kept him going, kept him sane- she was thinking about him, she was saying his name- when his parents sent him away.

Ireina was two when she started coloring in the patterns he left on her skin. Uncle Luke wouldn't completely ban pens. The original Jedi were only allowed platonic relationships with their soulmates, and it was this rule that eventually led to the Order's downfall as the strongest among them turned to the dark side for love. Luke had a match of his own, too. The new Jedi students still had to learn not to focus too heavily on attachment, had to learn to clear their minds and focus, but they weren’t denied communication.

Still, there wasn’t a wealth of colors at hand. Ben drew the outlines of a garden down the side of his thigh, snaking vines blooming with flowers down his calf all the way to the instep. She brought them to life in vibrant pinks, purples, and greens, and learned over time to stay inside the lines.

She made the vines purple and the blossoms green. He liked them better that way.

There was a heart on his cheek when he woke up one morning and he was stuck with it the whole day, but he didn't mind. His fellow initiates saw it and giggled. It wasn't malicious, though. Just heartwarming. Ben Solo adored his little soulmate, and it manifested a warmth that blanketed them all through the Force.

He was fourteen and had written random words among the pictures. _Never alone. Forever your friend._ Everything he wanted to tell her, everything he _would_ tell her. As he washed away his black ink in the 'fresher, he found the words remained in rainbow colors and realized Ireina had been tracing his letters. That night, he sat cross-legged on his bed and wrote her name on the side of his knee. Each line individually, slowly. She copied along and learned to write her name with him. He taught her his name on the other leg.

She wrote his name a lot, drew him little pictures. Sometimes they would draw together, his black ink and her colorful markers moving around each other on their shared skin. She only ever responded to his sentences with his name in different colors, still unable to understand the words, but he didn't care. He wrote, and he waited for when she understood, when she could tell him where she was, when she would write coordinates and the name of a planet on her skin and say _Come Find Me._ As the younger, tradition dictated it would be up to her to decide she was ready for them to meet. He'd wait as long as she wanted. He was good at waiting.

On an inconsequential day, Ben woke up to a single smudged word, written hastily along his arm. It wasn't Ireina's handwriting, too high up on his arm and not nearly as untidy as hers. Someone wrote this on her in big block letters that had been half smudged away.

_JAI--_

He didn’t think much of it, until the next day, when he realized she'd stopped responding to him and it was very suddenly no longer inconsequential. His lines remained uncolored, his words untraced. Days upon days, his skin was left blank aside from the ink he so desperately etched into his flesh for her. Black ink screaming to her across the galaxy through their skin-soul connection through the Force.

It was two weeks later and he’d gone half mad when a sun he didn’t draw appeared on the back of his hand and he nearly wept with relief.

The voices echoed hollowly in his head. He couldn't bear to be alone in his own skin.

\---

Her messages became shorter and shorter. Less and less frequent. She didn't use colors anymore.

Usually it was just his name in her terrible handwriting. Sometimes a simple drawing. Once, someone wrote on her and Ben’s stomach churned, envy at someone touching her, terror over the last time someone who wasn’t Ireina wrote on her skin. It was handwriting he'd never seen before, written in the wrong direction so it was upside-down to his eyes. One simple word along the muscle of her right forearm.

_Broken._

Shortly after, he got a series of shaky, nonsensical lines over his left arm and hands. One almost looked like a B. As had become her custom, the marks were not washed off. They simply faded, slowly, slowly, becoming increasingly smudged over the days until they disappeared.

_Broken_ stayed dark against his skin for weeks. He certainly felt broken, cut off from her for so long, cut off from her forever he realized with a choked sob and hollow feeling in his chest. She wasn’t dead. She was _not_ dead. He knew it in the pit of his soul. The Force would have let him feel it, with how deeply intertwined they already were, had she been dead. It had to. No, she was alive, still, but she didn't write to him and he was… _Broken._ It was the last thing he ever saw from her before it, too, eventually faded.

_She doesn't want to talk to you,_ the voice in his head whispered. Constant now. There was plenty of room for it to speak and flourish with as empty as Ben was feeling. _But you are not broken because of it, my boy. You're **better.** Her mind is too small for you. A little child,_ it sneered. _She doesn't want anything to do with a sixteen year old boy. She'd think you're bizarre. She can't understand your brilliance. She can't even write back to you when you write to her, she's too simple minded to read. You're better than this. You don't need her. You don't need anyone._

Ireina hadn't reached for him in three months. The whispers were louder than ever. The other initiates watched him with pity as he went through the grieving stages of losing his other half. Then they watched him in fear as his pain festered into power. For the first time since the day of her birth, he didn’t write or draw anything to her. For the first time in nearly seven years, his skin was entirely clear.

His uncle tried to kill him.

Ben stained his skin with blood and briefly wondered if the girl’s hands, galaxies away, were as red as his. He drowned the thought, let go of the dam he'd used to hold back the dark side of the Force for so long, let it seep into every crevice of his mind like the black ink he’d held dear. It shut out everything of no importance.

Never again would he put a pen to his flesh.

Snoke pulled him to his side, showed him the truths of the universe.

Ben Solo died. The girl named Ireina was erased. Kylo Ren denied tradition and never wrote his name on his skin.

The Supreme Leader was right, of course. He was better off without a match. After all, Darth Vader had been erased, and it had made him the strongest Force user in history. Kylo covered himself from neck to toe to fingertips. He didn't need to see if she drew to him. He didn't need her to want him. He didn't need to know if she was alive or not. He didn't need her at all.

He only needed the dark.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Did he draw those for you? Your precious little _soulmate?"_  
>  She leaned forward in the restraints, challenging him. "He makes me stronger than you could ever dream of being. Go ahead, try again.”  
> Kylo huffed a laugh. “Just like that? You’re going to let me in and just give it to me?”  
> “I'm not giving you anything."  
> "We'll see," he said with a smirk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 2! I'M SO EXCITED THIS IS MY FAVORITE PART.
> 
> Again, endless thanks to [SuchAPrettyPoison](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuchaPrettyPoison/pseuds/SuchaPrettyPoison) for beta reading, support, and this glorious moodboard!  
> Go give her stories love! She's the Fake Dating QUEEN.

#

It had all come down to this.

Years of training. Proving himself. A search across the galaxy. His true purpose, his family’s legacy, coming to fruition.

It had come to this. Kylo Ren stalking through the forest on Takodana, chasing down a droid and the girl intent on helping it.

The first glimpse he got of her was a brief flicker of tan clothes and a flash of red. She shot at him recklessly, most of her shots shattering tree branches and rocks. He deflected the bolts that did come at him fluidly with his saber and stayed in steady pursuit. She was fast, but it didn’t matter. He could feel her signature like a heartbeat under his own skin, following her trail through the forest, through the Force.

_Closer. So close-_

The Force was with him. Was veritably _buzzing_ with approval.

_Yes. Yes. YES.  
This is it. This is what you've been looking for!_

Two more bolts fizzled to death on his blade and Kylo shot out his hand, freezing the girl on the spot. She struggled valiantly, uselessly, against his hold as he stalked toward her.

“The girl I’ve heard so much about,” he muttered as he got closer. Her eyes were wide in terror, breath coming in quick gasps. The clothes she wore were old, weathered, and covered most of her skin. What sections were left uncovered were tanned, her hair nearly matching her skin tone. Freckles dusted over her shoulders, collar bones, the bridge of her nose. Scuffed boots, scratched knees, scarred and calloused hands.

A laborer from a desert planet, at best guess. A scared girl out of her depth.

A nobody.

Kylo walked behind her, feeling her dread increase through the Force as he left her line of sight. “The droid." He whipped his saber up, just shy of touching her face. The sour tinge of her spiking fear mixed with the smell of burning hair as a few of her loose strands were singed by the blade. "Where is it?"

She said nothing, despite the fact that he hadn’t frozen her ability to speak, despite the imminent threat of his saber so near. So, they’d have to do this the hard way. Kylo sighed, disengaging his saber and clipping it back to his side. He circled back around to face her. Raising a hand to steady his focus, he dipped himself into her mind.

Oh, but this was a strong one. Raw, untamed power beat through her veins, but it beat uselessly. Untrained. Abandoned. Alone, scavenging in the graveyards of Jakku. She was pure potential, a seed that could burst to life, towering sturdy and strong above all. And yet so helpless against Kylo’s talents. He concentrated his thoughts, guiding hers, suggesting the direction to show him-

Droid. Skywalker. Location.

_Don’t let him see-_

"The map. You've seen it."

She couldn't move, couldn't run, not physically, but she wasn’t one to go down without giving every ounce of fight or flight she had a chance. He’d nearly gotten a grasp on the image- the halls of the _Falcon_ , the traitor, the ball droid of a BB unit, blue lights flaring to life, holographic stars sparkling in the eyes of Han Solo-

He faltered.

_Get away from me!_

And then it was gone. She pulled away from his presence, snatching back her memories, thoughts, consciousness. Guarding and shielding so fiercely it was as if the earth had sucked her down below its surface. He started after her, seeping through the dirt and roots, when his concentration was wrenched away by explosions getting nearer and nearer to their position. Two stormtroopers approached him from the trees.

"Sir! Resistance fighters! We need more troops!"

"Pull the division out,” Kylo told them, turning back to the girl. “Forget the Droid."

With a pass of his hand and push of the Force, he knocked her unconscious and swept her into his arms.

_I have what I need._

\---

Reckless.

Stupid, even.

Maybe.

No, this was definitely the most ridiculous thing he could have done. A moment of madness, it had to have been, to take the girl for her memory, rather than just punching through her mind, finding where the droid had gone, and getting the map for good.

Back on _Starkiller Base_ , Kylo watched over the still-sleeping girl he’d strapped into the interrogation chair and lost himself in his thoughts. He wondered if the buzzing in the Force had gotten to him on Takodana, skewed his perspective, confused him into carelessness. He sat and stewed and waited for the girl to wake up. Absolutely ridiculous.

Well. It _should_ have been.

And yet the Force continued to hum delightedly in approval.

At least the Force approved. Snoke would not.

He should just dive into her mind while she was unconscious. Defenseless. Take the memories by force. It was what he took her for in the first place, anyway.

Memories of his own flashed through his mind at the thought. His parents tucking him in, promising to see him in the morning, and leaving him behind while he dreamed. Snoke's voice in his nightmares as a boy. Luke Skywalker, saber ignited, ready to kill him as he sleeps-

Kylo waited.

The girl woke up with a gasp.

Quick as ever, she only took a moment to orient herself, looking around the room. Tugging on her restraints. Settling back as she accepted she wasn’t going to get out by brute strength without breaking her own bones. She leveled Kylo with a sneer before speaking.

"Where am I?"

Kylo smiled cynically behind his mask. "You're my guest."

She scrunched her nose in distaste at the joke. "Where are the others?" she demanded.

"You mean the murderers, traitors, and thieves you call friends?” Her glare narrowed further. “You'll be relieved to hear that I have no idea."

She relaxed at that, her face softening as she took a moment to herself, before fixing him with a hard stare once more.

Her disgust was so palpable he didn't even need to reach out with the Force to know how she felt about him. Her thoughts were locked away tight- his brief dive in the forest was enough to tell that any clear memory would have to be coaxed out of her with effort and patience, or a brutality that could leave her mind in pieces- but her emotions were written on her face for the world to see. Perhaps she could benefit from a mask of her own.

"You still want to kill me," he mused, reading _murder_ in her eyes.

"That's what happens when you're being hunted by a creature in a mask."

A _creature_ , is he?

If there was anything Kylo Ren enjoyed anymore, it was proving someone wrong.

Before he thought too much about it - and really, he probably should have taken a moment to think about it, he obviously wasn’t doing enough of that lately - Kylo clicked the pressure release on his mask, whipping it off as he stood to his full height.

Even strapped up onto the chair as she was, he still towered over her. She blinked rapidly, her brows furrowing and lips parting in shock as she took in his face.

_And behold, the monster is a man._

He turned away to drop the mask on its pedestal. When he looked back, her eyes were still watching him, though she turned away quickly when he caught her staring. Even when he stepped closer, she refused to look at him.

She was uncomfortable. Good.

“Tell me about the droid,” he said, and there was a catch in her breath when she heard him speak without the distortion of his mask. He decided not to dwell on it.

“It’s a BB unit,” she started, her voice forced into calm nonchalance, “With a selenium drive and a thermal hyperscan vindicator-”

Kylo turned his face away from her to hide the smile he’d quirked at her impudence and interrupted, “-Carrying a section of a navigational chart. We have the rest, recovered from the archives of the Empire, but we need the last piece. And somehow, you convinced the droid to show it to you.” He looked over her critically again, recalling the brief glimpse of a hard life in the desert he’d seen when he viewed her memories in the forest. “You.” Young, unassuming, _nobody._ “A scavenger.”

She looked like she was fighting back tears, and for some reason that didn’t sit well with him. He took a moment to look away from her face, steeled himself, schooled himself, bit down on his inner cheek before coming back at her with a warning threat.

"You know I can take whatever I want."

He raised his hand until it was not quite touching her cheek- and she _knew_ already, what that motion meant, cringing away from him as her breath hitched. Kylo visualized his power in the Force and bled black ink into her mind, making what was hers his own. 

"You're so lonely. So afraid to leave.” Already, the intensity of her emotions and the depth of the connection he’d made choked his voice. She kept the information she knew he wanted under a tight guard, but it left her other memories, left _her,_ vulnerable. “At night, desperate to sleep, desperate to… to understand the words, written on your arms, that you… can't read."

"I can read," she spat.

"You can now," he corrected. He brought his other hand up to drag his fingertips up her arm. Not enough to put pressure on her, but just barely catching the edges of her arm wrappings on his gloves. She pulled away from him as far as she could in the bonds. His wrists stung. "But it's too late, isn't it? They don't write to you anymore, and now you can't bear to look at your blank skin."

He could hear her labored breathing, the grind of her teeth, the occasional gasp as she tried to fight against his invasion, but he saw only the images his ink drew from her. Her memories flashed through his mind. Her sensations passed over his skin. Her pain burned his eyes and blurred his vision. He blinked away her tears.

"So you picture an ocean. I can see it. I see the island. You sit in the shade on the beach… Waiting. Watching… watching vines grow on your limbs-"

This seemed more like a nightmare to him than a dream, and yet, she treasured it. A ship landed before her in the sand and a boy with vines on his limbs walked down the ramp, the sun illuminating him gradually from the feet up, a face she doesn't know hidden in shadow. The image flickered, a new vision on top of the old one. The ship became _that ship_ and walking in his place, emerging into the sunlight, the boy became Han Solo. There to take her away.

"And Han Solo," Kylo continued, a bite to his voice. "You feel like he's the father you never had. He would have disappointed you. Just like your soulmate-"

_"Get out of my head."_

The vines in the vision lifted from her skin as she took control, whipped against his presence and he recoiled, stepping away from her.

"Those _weeds_... did he draw them for you? Your precious little _soulmate?"_ Kylo pushed again, digging for the name. Syllables or letters he could steal and stain, turn to a barb, but they were buried deep in bedrock. The girl glared and ground her teeth, and he was forced out again with nothing to show for the effort but frustration he turned back on her. "Should we write something to him? I'm open to suggestions, but I'm thinking something along the lines of 'You're nothing to me,' or 'Die in a hole.' Or maybe we could just ask for his location and pay him a visit?"

Her eyes turned hard as she leveled her gaze on him. "You can't use him to hurt me. I'm erased."

"Are you sure?" he taunted with a smirk. "Or did he abandon you in that desert as well?"

The girl lunged against the restraints, baring her teeth like she wanted to bite him. 

"He would _never._ He would _never_ give up on me! That's what being one flesh _means._ He's _mine!_ He would never-"

"Would he? Maybe he was just as capable of cutting off distractions as I was."

She slumped back and looked him over head to toe, and he scraped his teeth over his lower lip under her assessment. Her eyes settled on his right hand, covered in black leather and clenched in a fist.

"You've shut yourself off from them."

"She was a weakness. I didn't need her."

"And now you're lying to yourself."

"And you're in love with a dead boy."

She narrowed her eyes, leaning forward in the restraints, challenging him.

"Love is power. And even dead, he makes me stronger than you could ever dream of being. Go ahead, try again.”

Kylo huffed a laugh. “Just like that? You’re going to let me in and just give it to me?”

“I'm not giving you anything."

"We'll see," he said with a smirk. It took real effort to calm himself and focus, too excited to challenge her power again. To overcome it.

He raised his hand and let his ink bleed into her mind, connecting them together again. Kylo could see it in her eyes when she felt his presence in her mind, the way her defiant glare became anxious concentration. Her breath picked up speed in his lungs. Her heart beat faster and faster against his ribs.

_It hurts-  
I know._

"Don't be afraid," he whispered. "I feel it too."

He flowed into her mind, and he should have been looking for the map, but instead he searched for memories of marks on her skin. Insecurities and abandonment and something precious that was lost that he could stain. There was a flower blooming on her stomach. Clovers on her feet. Twisting vines grew along her veins that she followed with her fingertips as they grew and covered and consumed. She was a garden. She was covered in life grown by love and attention and he could not defile her.

It was too late, far too late, by the time Kylo realized what she was doing. What she’d done. Her plants followed his ink trails, tracing his power back to its source, and she was in _his_ mind. Her signature was a petal-soft caress, a barely-there brush against his skin, before she lashed out and attacked in an overgrowth. He was wrapped up in purple vines. Choked by green flowers. Muted and immobilized, she took whatever she wanted-

"You. _You_ are afraid," the girl whispered. Her vines grew thorns and tore into him, her words seeping poison into his bloodstream. "You're afraid of being alone in your skin, that you _are_ erased, that the girl you love is gone forever. That you'll never truly be able to grasp that as a strength. You _want_ to be loved and you hate that you want it. You'll never be as strong as Darth Vader-"

The energy it took to rip himself free had him stumbling backwards. His head was throbbing. He tried to take deep breaths, steady himself. The girl was the calmest she'd been since she woke up strapped to that chair, and she stared at him like she had a sour taste in her mouth.

Her lips were set in an angry line, her brows furrowed in determination, but there was _pity_ in her eyes.

"Is the idea of loving someone really that terrible to you?"

"Someone who doesn't want you?" he hissed, his voice more breathless then he'd care to admit. The girl's brow twitched with a flash of pain and confusion before she schooled her features back into a determined mask. "You of all people should know _exactly_ how terrible that is, with what your parents did to you. All those sleepless nights you spent, crying for them. Believe me, it's better to not feel at all. What has love ever done for you?!"

He lashed out without preamble, flooding into her mind--

_Come back!_  
The roar of engines. A ship disappeared in the sky.  
_Come back!!_  
She unwrapped the fabric from her arms- blank as they've been for years- sobbing as the agony of acceptance hit and she tried to remember what a flower looks like.  
_Come back… please..._

\--Just as quick, she brought those vines back up in a defensive wall, shielding herself from both him and her own memories.

"What has love done for me?!" she screamed. Outraged. Unbelieving. _"Take a look!!"_

It felt like tree roots shot up to wrap around his wrists and ankles before they sucked him down into the earth, the darkness of dissociation filled with images and foreign sensation.

The memories were old and fuzzy. Flashes of colors and swirling lines. The only thing clearly remembered and shared was the emotion of it all. Warm. Complete. Loved.  
She held up her arm, small and chubby, pointing to a mark on her skin. There were flowers on her fingers, words she could not read intertwined with the stems.  
_And this one?_ she'd asked.  
_It means 'forever,'_ her mother told her.  
Her heart flooded with pure, innocent joy.

She shoved Kylo out of her mind and he stumbled back again, catching himself against the wall as that last memory dissipated and he tried to deny it all. Sharing the girl's mind, feeling what she'd felt - however intrusive she had been - had felt _good._ So damnably good, but her sudden absence left him hollow and aching. He hid his face behind one gloved hand and tried to even out his breathing.

He'd felt that before, the emotion this girl had shared, and his own memory came back to him in an echo. His name in her handwriting, the letters all different sizes. Lines on his knees. _She likes your drawings. They make her laugh._

A wound he thought he'd long scarred over had been reopened - _broken_ \- and his soul was bleeding out onto the floor. He glanced up at the girl through his hair, his teeth bared in a pained snarl. He stayed where he was, but he wanted to grip her arms hard, wanted to dive back into her mind without reservation. He wanted-

_More._

"What was that?" he asked, voice raw.

"That's what unconditional love feels like."

_Give me more._

"Why would you show it to me?"

_Again._

"To prove you wrong."

_Do it again._

Kylo straightened and looked away from her, running his hands through his hair and taking deep breaths. This had gotten away from him. This whole damned thing. All because this girl who, Force knows why, had managed to befriend a droid that _happened_ to have the map to Skywalker, and just _happened_ to see said map, had to be strong with the-

A thought occurred to him- _finally_ \- and he turned back to her with an inquisitive look.

“Where did you learn to do that?”

The question jarred her, unbalanced her for the first time during this whole interrogation. “Do what?”

_“That._ Reading thoughts. Sharing memories. Using the Force.” There had been nothing in her memories. No teachers, no instruction. So how-?

“I wasn’t…” She blinked rapidly, mouth hanging open as she searched for words. “No. No I don’t… I don't want any part of this. I can’t use the Force.”

“But you _did.”_ She stared at him, giving him nothing, and he realized, “You have no idea what you’re doing, do you? It’s all just instinct.”

“Are you calling me stupid?” she growled.

“No, I’m calling you remarkable.”

Her jaw clenched and she shifted her eyes away from his face, an intriguing blush coloring her cheeks.

“Just imagine,” Kylo continued. “If you can fight against _me_ as well as you have, completely untrained, imagine what you would be capable of with instruction.”

“Well, the Jedi are just dead legends now,” she said disdainfully. “So that’s not going to happen.”

"I could teach you," he muttered, not wholly sure why he said the words, reverting back to _not thinking._ Her eyes flicked back up to him, meeting his gaze head on. "How to fight. Meditate. Bend the will of the universe to your command. I could show you the ways of the Force."

_“You_ could teach me?” she said, her voice disbelieving.

He nodded.

"The Force," she repeated on a breath. The girl closed her eyes and breathed deeply. _“Feel it.”_

A shiver ran down Kylo's spine, and he was glad she didn't see it. It felt like a wind had swept into the room, swirling around them, with no actual movement. A pulse of power rippled out from her, then flooded back exponentially stronger than before. His lips parted in shock. Awe. She was pulling the Force itself to her, and it hummed along in tune with her mind. Her eyes opened again and she looked…

Peaceful.

She jerked her chin down, and stars exploded in his vision as he felt a _crack_ against his forehead that snapped his head backwards. He stumbled back two steps, a hand raising instinctually to press against the pain in his head, and stared at her dumbfounded.

She'd headbutted him _with the Force._

_"You_ teach _me?"_ The scavenger leaned towards him again, narrowing her eyes. "I'd rather let the X'us'R'iia peel my skin off."

"You little-"

She bared her teeth and jerked her head again and there was another _crack_ of pain in his face that wrenched a shout from his throat. He hunched over, blood dripped from his nose, and he moved his hand to staunch it.

The door opened and a trooper stepped into the room.

"Commander Ren-"

_"WHAT?!"_

The soldier took a self-preserving step back. "G-general Hux sent-"

"I'm busy," he snapped, cutting them off.

"The Supreme Leader is requesting your presence, sir."

Kylo deflated with a growl. Of all the things that could have interrupted him, it would be the one that he couldn't say no to. And yet, he hesitated.

"Oh, no, no," the girl crooned in too-sweet of a voice. He turned his gaze back to her and she _batted her fucking eyelashes at him._ "Don't let me keep you. You can go."

Kylo gaped at her. She’d _dismissed_ him. He worked his jaw as he convinced himself that, yes, he really did have to go. He turned to the trooper.

"You stay and watch her," Kylo commanded.

"Sir," he said with a nod, taking up position to the side of the doorway.

Kylo turned back to the girl, pointing an accusing finger at her. "We are not done here," he snarled.

She had the gall to snap her teeth at the digit. Not that she was close enough to actually bite him, but his recent experience of being struck without her actually touching him was enough that he pulled his hand back quickly. He snatched up his helmet, stalling for one more look at the girl before fixing it over his head. She was watching him, an indecipherable look on her face. Her lower lip trembled.

_I’m coming back,_ he promised.

She let out a breath, calming, hearing the sincerity of his thought in her mind. Her brow then furrowed and she stared resolutely at anything but him. Before Kylo could do something even more thoughtless, he stormed out of the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We'll wrap this story up with Part 3 on Friday!
> 
> Thank you for reading!!
> 
> I scream into the void on Twitter: [KrossArtist](https://twitter.com/krossartist/)  
> And Tumblr: [It'sAGreyJediArea](https://itsagreyjediarea.tumblr.com/)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Leave here with me. Come home. We miss you."  
> "I'm being torn apart," he choked out.  
> Han grabbed him by the wrist, and pulled a pen out of his pocket.  
> "Do you want me to write it, kid?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Go give love to [SuchAPrettyPoison](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuchaPrettyPoison/pseuds/SuchaPrettyPoison)! I swear, if it wasn't for her beta reading and encouragement, this never would have gotten finished.  
> thank you, Thank You, THANK YOU!!!

#

She got away.

_She got away._

And Han Solo was _here._

Kylo could feel him as soon as he’d landed and now he was here, somewhere in the base. Closer than he needed him to be. He had been given an order, and he couldn’t let himself be distracted by his looming test now. He had to find the girl.

He had to find her. She held everything, _everything_ he needed. His thoughts were consumed with her as he searched the base, the Force, to find her. He needed the map, and now he was under orders to bring her back to Snoke-

**_He doesn’t get to touch her._ **

Shaking the intrusive thoughts away, Kylo stalked across a catwalk. Perhaps he’d get better clues in the base command center. Away from this conflicting push and pull, darkness and light, the girl and his-

"Ben!"

That name, that _voice,_ stopped him in his tracks. Stopped the air in his lungs. He forced it back out.

No. _No.  
He means nothing to me._  
A test. Just a test. He could do this.

Kylo Ren turned around and faced the man who called a dead boy’s name.

“Han Solo.” His mask distorted his voice, making him sound wrong, only adding to the nauseating feeling of calling this man by his name instead of- _He means **nothing.**_ “I’ve been waiting for this day for a long time.”

Han paused before walking slowly across the walkway, and everything narrowed down to just the two of them. A door opened stories above, shining light down around them and drowning everything else in darkness. Kylo took a deep breath, feeling a sense of peace wrap around him despite his ever-quickening heartbeat, trapping his chaos within it.

He could do this.

"Take off that mask,” Han told him, walking closer still. “You don't need it."

"What do you think you'll see if I do?"

"The face of my son."

For the second time that day, Kylo removed his mask to prove someone wrong. It dropped onto the bridge with a resounding thud.

Han was _wrong._ He wasn’t his son. Not anymore.

Even from the distance still between them, he could see as Han’s jaw dropped open, his eyes roving over Kylo’s face, trying to match the familiar but _so unfamiliar_ features with those of a boy who only existed in memories.

"Your son is gone. He was weak and foolish, like his father, so I destroyed him."

"That's what Snoke wants you to believe, but it's not true. My son is alive."

He could do this.

"No.” He could- “The Supreme Leader is wise, he-"

He can’t.  
He can’t do this.

"He is _using_ you for your power, and when he gets what he wants, he'll crush you.”

_This_ was crushing him.  
He was so close now, so close Kylo took an instinctive step back, moving out of arm's reach. Han wasn’t the only one trying to match new but familiar features to old memories. When had his hair gone completely grey? When did the laugh lines get replaced by frown lines? Was that a new jacket?  
_He can’t do this._

“You know it's true."

Yes, he did. Kylo’s mouth pressed into a thin line, eyes stinging. He regretted taking off his mask. Every emotion showed on his face, and he hated that he couldn't hide anything. The only person he'd ever been able to lie to was himself.

"It's too late," he said bitterly.

"No, it's not. Leave here with me. Come home. We miss you."

His father was a good liar, but this time, those words, spoken on a pained sigh... it didn’t sound like a lie.

"I'm being torn apart," he choked out. "It feels like my skin, my head, my heart is splitting open, over and over. I just want the pain to stop."

Han breathed out heavily, his eyes filled with empathy, and it was just like when he was younger-  
_It hurts, dad._  
He’d sigh and put his hand his son’s hair and pull his head to rest on his chest so all he could hear was his heart and not the voices-  
_I know, kid. I know._

"That's what it feels like when you're cut off from the other half of yourself. I've watched your mom for long enough to know. When you've lost half your skin, everything else is thrown out of balance, and with your powers that's only going to be so much worse." He stepped closer, voice dropping to a whisper, his face sad and serious. He'd gotten so _old-_ "All this shit you’ve had to deal with- Snoke, the Force, your soulmate. I know I'll never really understand it all, but I _know_ you shouldn’t go on like this. We want you home. We _want_ you. And that girl of yours shouldn't have to live without you. She's waiting for you, Ben. You waited for her, once. Now you've made her wait even longer for you. It's time to end this. She needs you."

Han grabbed him by the wrist of his right arm before he could blink. He startled back a step, but his father held him firmly. He tugged the glove off his hand, tossing it over the edge of the walkway, and pulled a pen out of his pocket.

"Do you want me to write it, kid?"

He couldn't move. He didn't nod, didn't speak, but he didn't pull away. Han took that as a consent, and bent over his palm. The skin of his hand was hypersensitive under the tip of the pen. He felt every line of the name he left behind as his father etched it back into him.

"Your mom named you this because it gave her hope. She wanted that hope to live on; to be a strength to others. It still gives strength, to someone."

Han put the pen back in his pocket, refusing to let go of his hand. He turned around, looked up to a balcony above, to the people standing there, watching them.

The scavenger girl stood four stories above them, the traitor FN-2187 at her side, her hands gripping the railing.

Han raised his son's hand up for them to see.

None of them moved. The room was so silent he could hear them breathing, even from so far away.

He wished he was close enough to see her eyes. To read her open expressions as she slowly, slowly moved her right hand, clenched into a fist, to hover uncertainly in front of her chest. A question. An impossibility.

_You're lying to yourself. You **want** to be loved._  
Maker, but he does. He _does,_ he still wants her. It's true, everything Snoke told him, everything he had been telling himself, was all lies poisoning his mind. He wants her. He doesn't want to be alone. He doesn't want _her_ to be alone.

She finally uncurled her fingers and looked down at her palm, only for a second, before her eyes snapped back up to lock on his.

_You're in love with a dead boy._  
She hadn't denied it.  
Would she now?

She leaned against the railing, trying to get as close as possible across this impossible distance. Her lips parted in shock.

_She learned to say your name today._  
He had ached to hear her voice for decades, and finally, _finally-_

"Ben," she whispered, a breeze echoing through the cavernous room.

_He would never give up on me. That's what being one flesh means. He's **mine.**_  
Is he still?

He took a step towards her. His boot knocked against the helmet he’d dropped and it fell, down, down, into the chasm below.

_It means 'forever.'_

Her breath hitched on a sob and she screamed.

_"BEN!!"_

She threw away the gun slung over her torso, gripped the railing, and vaulted over.

"Rey!" the traitor shouted after her. But she was already out of reach, running to the next railing, swinging herself over the bars.

Chewbacca roared. Han stepped forward, watching her in shock as she looked down, gauged the distance to the bottom, double what she had just dropped.

"Kid, what the hell are you doing?!"

She jumped-

_"Ireina!!"_

Ben's voice rang out as his hand reached for her and he caught her mid-air with the Force. She gasped as she hung suspended, and he lowered her down as he and his father charged back down the walkway.

"Damnit, Ireina, are you crazy?!"

Her feet touched ground about twenty paces away from him and then they were running at each other, drawn together, two that were one.

She paused for a split second, staring into his face, and he could finally see her shining eyes, read her emotions like he could read her mind. Shock, disbelief, outrage, _hope._ Then she took that final step and closed the distance.

He caught a glimpse of his name on her palm as she reached for him, her hands fisting in his collar, yanking him down to her level so forcefully they almost bashed their heads together.

"You _idiot!!_ You are _coming home,"_ she commanded him, her voice breaking on the last word. "You are coming with me and you are never, _ever_ leaving me alone again!"

"I thought you didn't want me," he whispered. Her image blurred before him and he blinked a few times to clear his vision. "Snoke, he told me… I thought you didn't… wouldn't... _couldn't-"_

"I could _never_ give up on you," she hissed. Her forehead pressed against his with enough pressure to hurt, but he didn't care. "They left me on Jakku, and I could barely find things to write with, and I broke my arm, couldn't write to you, and then you just- you just _stopped."_ She choked on her words again. He brought his hands up to her cheeks and smoothed away the tears he found there. "I thought you were dead."

"I'm sorry." He couldn't seem to catch his breath, but it felt like he was breathing for the first time in a long time. "Ireina, I am so, so sorry."

“You’re damn well right, you’re sorry!” she screamed in his face and held him closer and all he could do was laugh and hold her tighter.

A steady hand on his shoulder pulled Ben back to the rest of the world. He looked up to watch his father’s face fall into shadow as the light of the sun disappeared.

"Sorry to cut this short, kids, but we're literally about to blow this joint." He tugged a bit on Ben’s sleeve, dragging him and Ireina along as they jogged to a staircase.

A strange sense of double vision was starting to take Ben over as they followed, Ireina’s hand solidly twined with his as she led their way. He could see the steps ahead of him, but also the ones ahead of her. Felt his own anxiety and her urgency as they went away from everything he’d known to what had been behind him, what was ahead of him- _home-_ after so long.

The roar of a Wookie was the only warning he had before Ben was blinded by fur and lifted off his feet, wrapped in a hug so hard it knocked the wind out of him.

“Oh for crying out- hug _later!”_ Han yelled, pulling Ben back down to the ground. “Seriously, you emotional muck bucket.”

Chewbacca let out a forlorn moan that had Han’s shoulders slumping and Ben going willingly back into the Wookie’s arms, his throat choked.

“I missed you too, Uncle Chewie.”

From there it was a mad-dash of running down corridors and climbing stairs, alarms blaring overhead as cannonfire rained down over the base.

Blaster shots smacked into the wall just ahead. Ireina shrieked as she jerked to a stop, Ben using his grip on her hand to pull her back, putting himself between her and the source of the attack.

Han cursed as a bolt grazed his shoulder and there was a sudden amplifying loop of fear-anger-strength- _Force_ flowing through Ben and the woman beside him. They both reached out and _pushed,_ knocking two of the troopers back so hard they slammed into the wall at the other end of the corridor. Ben went to attack the other groups, but the next trooper he got eyes on was hit with blaster fire before he moved. Shot after shot rained from above them, keeping the stormtroopers off their backs as they scrambled to defend themselves.

“Big Deal’s got us covered, let’s go!” Han grunted, shoving them forward to continue their sprint to the exit.

Ben felt the chill whip against Ireina’s skin when she cleared the top step and he’d gotten his cowl half undone by the time he reached the landing.

“Finn!”

“Rey, what the _fuck?!”_

“We’ll explain later, let’s go!” she shouted, though it was muffled by Ben shoving the scarf over her head. They struggled together for a moment to free her face while the ex-trooper watched incredulously.

“What the fuck is this?!”

“This is Ben! He’s mine!”

_“What the fuck is happening?!”_

_“Let’s go!!”_ Han yelled, joining them at the top. “Hit it, Chewie!”

A faint click from the direction of the Wookie was all the warning he had before explosion after explosion erupted below them. Ireina bolted for the door, her free hand snatching Finn’s jacket at the shoulder as she dragged both boys out with her, Chewie and Han scrambling out after them.

“The Falcon’s this way,” Finn told them, gaining his own surefooting and leading the way as they started jogging out into the snow.

The race to the ship was just a blur of sensation, his adrenaline-addled brain having little comprehension of the actual time or distance. It was all a soft ache in his muscles. The smell of pine, plasma, hot metal and smoke burning in his sinuses. The sting of cold air in his lungs. Everything doubled as he felt it for himself and again through an ever-growing connection with Ireina.

And even through the anxiety of running for their lives, he marveled at it. What he’d mistaken as an overly strong mental link during their interrogation was truly the growing bond of a soul pairing finally coming together. He could feel her single-minded focus, her ingrained strength, how she refused to let fear or worry slow her down.

_I’ve got you,_ she hummed in his mind, responding to his tumultuous thoughts. _That’s all that matters._

He gave her hand a squeeze and ran.

Concern sparked in her mind when they caught sight of the _Millennium Falcon._ The main ramp was open, cockeyed, and one of the hydraulic strut rods was broken. The ship had been landed haphazardly on a rocky ledge, and one of them had made an impact on the hatch.

"You left the door open?!" Han griped, causing the Wookie to whine his defence. "Well yes, I can see that, Chewie, but we can’t exactly leave atmo without an airlock!"

"I can get it working,” Ireina said. She gave Ben’s hand another squeeze before letting go, making her way to the broken strut. “Finn, go grab the toolkit. Chewie, help me hold this?"

Ben hesitated at the top of the ramp, not wanting to let her out of his sight as she futzed with the mechanics, but his father smacked his arm lightly to get his attention.

"Your girl's a wiz with machines, Ben, don't worry about her. Help me get the _Falcon_ going."

“Have I lost my mind, or did Kylo Ren loan you his hood and run away with us?!” he heard Finn hiss as Ben followed his father into the cockpit.

“His name is Ben,” Ireina snapped. “Now hand me that wrench.”

He veered to the copilot position out of an old, ingrained childhood habit, but Han caught his shoulder and tilted his head toward the pilot’s seat.

“You’re the one with two working arms.”

Ben nodded, taking his seat, and went about flicking switches and buttons, priming the engines, in a weird sense of both remembering how this worked and figuring it out for the first time. Things looked the same as they always had, but every time he went for a switch he’d realized he’d reached too far and had to pull back to find the right one.

"I remember this being bigger," Ben grumbled. Han rummaged in a storage compartment for the medkit, visibly struggling with whether he should laugh or cry. He emerged with a couple bacta patches, slapping one on his shoulder with a grunt before pressing a second foil-wrapped packet into Ben’s hand.

"Put that in your pocket," his dad muttered. Ben looked down at it, then back up at his father with a quirked brow.

"What for?"

"For when your Aunt Mara slaps the shit out of you," his dad said gravely. A shudder went down his spine and nausea crawled up his throat.

"Fuck."

"My sentiments exactly." He paused, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “She told us, you know. What Luke did.”

Ben stiffened at the mention of his uncle, the turning point from all those years ago.

“It’s a good thing he’s hiding out on some planet where no one can find him,” Han continued. “‘Cause when I see him again, I’m gonna put a blaster bolt in his kneecap. We tried to find you, Ben, for so long…”

“Well, I’m here now.”

His dad swivelled the seat and tugged him into a hug that was more of a grapple than an embrace. But it felt good.

“Ramp’s closed!” Ireina told them as she, Chewie, and Finn joined them in the now cramped cockpit. Chewie slid into the copilot’s seat, helping prepare for launch. Finn jerked to a stop just inside the door.

He swung up his blaster, barrel pointed at Ben. "Back the fuck away from the controls, Ren."

"Finn!"

Han's blaster came up at Finn, the younger man gaping at him. "Drop it."

"Did he use some kind of mind control on you guys?!"

"He hasn't done anything to our heads," Han told him. "Now put it down."

"I should just shoot him now-!"

_"No!"_ Ireina screamed, her hand reaching-

A surge went through the Force and the blasters were wrenched out of Finn and Han's grips, throwing themselves to Ireina's chest with enough momentum to slam back against the wall and knock the wind out of her.

They all went still, gaping at her.

"Okay, that's new," she said under her breath, putting the guns on the seat. "Now can we all calm down and just get off this planet without trying to kill each other?"

"Only if one of you can give me a little bit more insight as to how you guys knew writing on _Kylo Ren’s_ hand would bring us to the alternate universe we now find ourselves living in.”

“He’s my son,” Han stated flatly.

“He’s your-” Finn cut himself off, looking between Han and Ben, then to Rey. “And he’s your-?”

“Soulmate,” she confirmed, holding up the hand with his name on it. “And no, I didn’t know. We’ve never met in person before.”

Finn let out a long breath that puffed out his cheeks. “I’m sorry, I was under the impression the galaxy was a _big_ place.”

“No matter how large the space, the Force connects us all,” Ben muttered. “It’s will brings people together.”

“Seriously, man?”

“Do I look like I'm joking?”

“You look like the First Order Commander who ordered my squad and I to kill the villagers in Tuanul,” he growled, pulling a hilt out of his pocket. Ben stared in shock at the chrome of the lightsaber, though only for a second before that, too, went hurtling into Ireina's hand.

"Finn, just drop it," she snapped, clipping the hilt to her side and shaking out her bruised palm.

"Do you have any idea what he's done?! What he's capable of?!"

"Yes, I am _intimately_ aware, but I'm not going to let you attack him."

"Rey, he's dangerous!"

"I'm not going to hurt any of you," Ben mumbled.

"Oh really?! A week ago you were throwing around a lightsaber and torturing people-"

"Finn!" Ireina gasped.

"And I'm just supposed to take your word and _trust_ you?

_"I_ trust him, Finn."

"He kidnapped you-!"

"-And _I trust him,"_ she stated with finality. "Now please, settle down, and we can discuss my soulmate's ghastly, turbulent past further when we're not running for our lives."

He stared at her and stewed for a moment, then threw his hands up in defeat.

"Fine!" Finn huffed, dropping into the seat behind the copilot and glaring at Ben. "But I'm watching you."

"But really, Han,” Ireina said in a hushed tone, holding her marked hand out to him. “How _did_ you know?"

"Well, your name is 'Rey,' Ben's soulmate's name was 'I _rei_ na,' you're the same age his girl would be, and you’d said your boy 'died' right around the time Ben got taken, so…" Han trailed off and shrugged.

"That's a bit of a stretch," Ireina mumbled. "I mean, you were right, but it's still a stretch."

His father shrugged again and poked at his bacta patch when the movement tugged at his injury. Ben's eyes widened with a realization.

"You took a gamble?!"

"For you, kid?" He turned to look at his son over his shoulder, eyes soft. "Always."

Ireina's jaw hung open in shock. "What could possibly be the odds of that?"

"Never tell me the odds," he said with his roguish grin.

The floor vibrated beneath their feet, an almighty shudder running through the ground. A fireball in the distance lit the sky like a sunrise as shockwave after shockwave roared through the planet itself.

“Speaking of odds,” Finn breathed. “They did it. They blew the oscillator.”

“Time to go. Hit it, kid.”

Ben gripped the yoke and, with a quick nod to Chewie manning the copilot controls and a few flipped switches, they lifted off the ground and broke through the atmosphere. And not a moment too soon, as the entire planet imploded in their wake. The _Falcon’s_ radar blinked wildly, picking up dozens of ships evacuating the destruction, including a small squadron of X-Wings that grouped around them.

“All teams, I’ve got eyes on the _Falcon!”_ someone called over the comms, a voice Ben recognized but couldn't quite place. One of the Resistance pilots flying around them, he assumed. “Our job’s done here. Head to the rendezvous point, we hit lightspeed in five.”

“Scoot,” Han said, nudging the pilot’s seat with his boot. “I can take it from here. Patch has kicked in, and I’ve got the coordinates.”

Ben gladly relieved the seat to his father, going to Ireina, who already had her hand held out to him. As soon as their skin met, the panicky beat of his heart calmed. She tugged him down the hall away from the others, shooting a glare at Finn when he tried to follow them. He reluctantly sat back down but watched them go with suspicion. Ben couldn’t really blame him.

Once out of sight around the bend, he slumped against the wall, pulling Ireina around to face him. She didn’t hesitate to wrap her arms around his waist and lean into his chest. Ben could feel how much this meant to her, how starved she was for the simple pleasure of being held and feeling safe and not alone. He felt it through her and he felt it for himself. He could hardly believe this was all real. That he was leaving. That she was here.

“It’s like the galaxy has suddenly started spinning in another direction,” Ireina mused, picking up on his train of thought. “It’s disorienting. But in a good way? Like… like I’ve been going the wrong way all my life, and now…”

"We’re on the right path,” he said, finishing the thought.

“Exactly.”

She grabbed his hand and held it in hers, tracing the letters with her fingertip. The ink smudged a bit as his palms started to sweat from the warmth of her touch.

And then she pulled his hand to her lips and pressed a burning kiss to his name. He wondered if she could feel the way his heart started to hammer in his chest, the way he could feel the phantom touch of calluses against his cheek- her cheek- as his fingers curled around the edge of her jaw.

When she pulled away, there was the smallest touch of anxiety at the back of her mind. That she was clinging to him too much, that she was the one holding on, that if she dared to let go for a second-

He tugged her tight against his chest, clinging to her, his thoughts screaming _never, never, never again. Yours. Always yours._ His eyes stung and he squeezed them shut as he kissed her forehead, lingering against her.

He’d color every bit of skin he could get his hands on, have her write her name in the places he couldn’t. Stain her permanently into his flesh. He’d wear short sleeves in a snowstorm just to show off the marks she left on his skin, so everyone in the galaxy knew he belonged to her.

“You’ll never be alone again,” he swore. She relaxed in his hold, snuggling closer to his shoulder.

“Neither will you.”

They stood together in comfortable silence, both of them feeling hopeful, at peace, for the first time in a decade.

It really had all come to this. The good, the bad, the terrible. His turn to the dark, his quest to find Skywalker. He'd given an order an unexceptionable Stormtrooper couldn't follow and drove them to defect. To go to Jakku. To find this girl- this random, perfect girl. To this ship, his father, and to the first time he saw her in the woods on Takodana. He recalled the way the Force hummed, the surety he felt just by being near her. It really was guiding him, bringing them together. Bringing him to her. Where he was supposed to be.

"I feel like I should apologize for knocking you out and kidnapping you,” he mumbled. “But seeing the end result of that decision, I can't really bring myself to do it."

"I accept your non-apology. Though I am also not sorry for bloodying your nose."

He chuckled, his thumb stroking up and down over her back. "No, I deserved that."

"You did."

"Were you really going to bite me with the Force?" he asked curiously.

"I have to admit, it was tempting.”

“Can’t really fault you there. Finn is right, you know. I’ve… I’ve done plenty to justify punishment.” Ben tightened his hold on her, willing himself to stop shaking by anchoring himself to her. Their minds fit so easily together, it was only a matter of remembering all the things he’d done for her to see. To understand. All the bloodshed and destruction, the things he did and the things he should have stopped. She still held on to him, despite it all. “Leaving doesn’t undo what I’ve done. And Snoke is still out there. He can still get in my head. What if-”

"He doesn't get to touch you," Ireina growled. "Not anymore. We'll fight him together, Ben. I'll help you."

"How am I supposed to come back from it all?" he whispered into her hair.

"I don't know. Yes, it’s a lot, but… there’s still light in you, Ben. I can feel it. Whatever happens, whatever we have to do, we're going to do it together." Ireina pulled back so she could look up at him, cradling his face in her palms. "And if anyone tries to touch you, I will break their hands."

That statement probably shouldn't have made his breath catch in his lungs or brought a flush to his cheeks, but damn if it wasn't suddenly hot and hard to breathe in here-

"I meant what I said," she continued, her voice so low it was practically a growl. He could hardly bring himself to blink, let alone look away from the intensity in her eyes. "I still do. _You're mine."_

"Yours," he promised. He pulled her into his chest tightly, unable to get enough of the feeling of her in his arms, her body against his. _I love you._

_I know._

"Alright chucklefucks," that same voice called through the comms again. Ben and Ireina went back to the others in the cockpit to listen more closely. "Welcome to the rendezvous roll call! This is Black Leader, Poe Dameron, flying home. Blue Squadron."

"Blue Leader, Snap Wexley, flying home."

"Blue Two, Yolo Ziff, flying home."

"Blue Three, Jess Pava, flying home."

There was a silent moment, long enough that Rey looked around confused and Finn closed his eyes tight in knowing. A slightly choked voice came through.

“Blue Six, Tallissan Lintra, flying home."

They finished their roll call somberly, leaving empty airspace for everyone they had lost. And they had lost… so many. Each missing member had their own moment of silence, a moment where they didn't get to speak their names but everyone else would be thinking of them.

Red Nine announced their flight, leaving space for the missing Red Ten after them. Then Dameron's voice was coming through the comms again.

"Millennium Falcon Search Party," he called.

His father was the first to reach up to his headset and call out. "Han Solo, flying home." The Resistance pilots whooped and hollered excitedly, the joy of victory returning when they heard the old war hero among them. Han just rolled his eyes. "Yeah yeah, I'm still kicking, shut up."

Chewie roared his own confirmation. Finn came up between the two pilot seats, pressing the button for comms and speaking his name, earning a round of cheers and a "Yeah, buddy!" from Dameron. Then he backed off and Ireina took his place, dragging Ben behind her.

"Rey, successfully found."

There was a chorus of cheers and an especially loud droid beeping from the other ships at her announcement, but they sounded far away to his ears. Because Ireina had stepped back and was looking at him expectantly. His father glanced at him over his shoulder. He thought he might cry, or scream, or vomit. He turned over his hand and watched as a passing star bathed the name written there in light.

He reached out and grasped Ireina’s hand, stepped up next to his father, and opened the comms.

"Ben Solo, flying home."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all, folks!  
> Soulmate AU is one of my favorite tropes, so I really hope I did it justice and you guys liked it!
> 
> (I've got a fluffy StormPilot short sequel to this in the works, btw, if that suits your fancy...)
> 
> Thank you for reading!!
> 
> I scream into the void on Twitter: [KrossArtist](https://twitter.com/krossartist/)  
> And Tumblr: [It'sAGreyJediArea](https://itsagreyjediarea.tumblr.com/)

**Author's Note:**

> Part Two posts on Tuesday!
> 
> I am now aware that canon!Ben went to Snoke in his early 20s, but when I first started writing this I was under the impression that he was about 16 when that happened so I’m gonna stick with it.
> 
> I scream into the void on Twitter: [KrossArtist](https://twitter.com/krossartist/)  
> And Tumblr: [It'sAGreyJediArea](https://itsagreyjediarea.tumblr.com/)


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